Thursday, May 24, 2018

Evergreen, Pine Orchard and even Evergreen City Councilman
Luther Upton get a big mention in Kelly Kazek’s new book, “Not Quite Right:
Mostly True Tales of a Weird News Reporter.”

Released on April 16 by Solomon & George Publishers of
Auburn, this 239-page book hilariously describes the wide variety of unusual
adventures that Kazek has experienced over the years during her successful
career as an award-winning newspaper reporter, editor and columnist in Alabama.

Currently, Kazek is the widely-known “Weird News Reporter”
for the Alabama Media Group and many readers will likely know her from her
off-beat stories in The Mobile Press-Register and on AL.com.

In her latest book, Kazek mentions Evergreen in a big way as
she describes how readers can visit the “Bigfoot Capital of Alabama.” She tells
readers how the Evergreen City Council officially voted to name the city the
“Bigfoot Capital” in February 2017 after “residents reported several Sasquatch
sightings and after researchers came to Evergreen and discovered what they
believed to be Bigfoot claw marks.”

She goes on to describe how members of the Gulf Coast
Bigfoot Research Organization came to the Collard Green Festival that year and
how stories about this chain of events “went viral,” prompting the council to
name Evergreen as Alabama’s “Bigfoot Capital.”

My favorite part of the book comes when Kazek shares the
ever-quotable Luther Upton’s thoughts on Sasquatch. Luther told her that he’d
never seen Bigfoot, “but I’ve never seen God either, and I believe in him. A
lot of people have seen these things. They aren’t quacks. They are legitimate
people who’ve seen these things.”

Kazek even gives Evergreen’s CVS drug store a big plug in
her book, noting that when readers come to visit Evergreen, they can buy
Bigfoot hats and T-shirts there.

Elsewhere in the book, Kazek describes how her story about Bigfoot
researchers believing that they’d found huge claw marks on a tree at Pine
Orchard sparked a nasty debate over whether or not “Bigfoot Deserves the Death
Penalty.” In the story, Kazek reported that researchers from the TV show
“Killing Bigfoot” said that if they encountered a Sasquatch, they would kill
it. Kazek, who does not believe in Bigfoot, said this caused a huge backlash
and debate over whether or not it’s right to kill a Bigfoot.

Even though Kazek isn’t a “Bigfoot believer,” she happens to
be married to one of the biggest Bigfoot enthusiasts in Alabama, Wil “Sweetums”
Elrick, a 6-foot-7, 300-pound former police officer who is a true-believer in
all things Sasquatch. With that in mind, Kazek’s book is full of off-beat
Bigfoot material, as evidenced by some of the book’s funny chapter titles –
“That Time My Fiancé Wanted to Dress as Bigfoot for the Wedding,” “That Time My
Story Sparked Debate: Does Bigfoot Deserve the Death Penalty,” “That Time I
Learned How to Recognize a Southern Bigfoot,” “How to Visit: Expedition
Bigfoot! and Bigfoot Capital of Alabama” and “That Time There Came Those Three
Little Words: Rent-A-Squatch.”

In the end, I thought this book was great, and it’s a
must-read for any local Bigfoot enthusiasts or fans of “weird news” stories in
general. The book is also very funny, and, more than once, it made me laugh out
loud, which is something that I don’t normally do while reading. If you’d like
to purchase a copy, its available through Kazek’s website, kellykazek.com as
well as through other online retailers like Amazon. Autographed copies of the
book are available through her website for a grand total of just $19 – that’s
$15 for the book and $4 for shipping.